Barely a week goes by without a report of terrorists or paedophiles misusing the internet, adding to its image of a vast lawless forum. But police are now starting to see the benefits the net can bring.
The upbeat chairman of the internet crime forum, detective chief superintendent Keith Akerman, believes it offers police as many opportunities as problems in the fight against crime. "The internet is a fantastic tool for police," he said. "The computer can't lie, it can tell you all sorts of things about what the user has been doing."
DCS Akerman drew up the plans for a new squad of technology savvy cyber cops which was launched last week. The home secretary, Jack Straw, said the 40-strong national hi-tech crime unit (NHTCU) has a brief to clean up the internet, after a string of high-profile cases suggested it had become a haven for criminals.
Officers are now monitoring suspected paedophiles as they trawl for victims in chatrooms, intercept emails and share intelligence with law enforcers around the world.
These new partnerships are vital to tackle internet crime. Police tracking an international child porn ring which called itself the Wonderland Club had to coordinate raids across three continents.
The investigation into the club's activities goes on, as police try to identify 1,200 images of victims. Interpol hosts a secure website, accessible by law enforcers worldwide, who can compare photographs sent by social services and parents against a database of pictures. Only 17 children have been identified so far.
A whole range of sites and software have been created to crack down on internet crime. A secure website, Net-Enforce, has been developed by the University of Glasgow to allow child protection and law enforcement agencies in different countries to exchange secure information.
DCS Akerman also praised the Whois database which allows officers to track down people posting information by finding out who owns web addresses and Neotrace, which allows police to trace the route of an email.
Definitive figures for online crime are hard to come by, but national criminal intelligence service spokeswoman, Fleur Strong, said the evidence indicates an alarming rise. She pointed to figures from Visa that 47% of fraud reported to it in the EU in 1999 involved internet transactions, although only 1% of its turnover came via the web.
The international law enforcement agency Web Police also reports an explosion in online crime, which corresponds with the boom in internet use. In 1993 they recorded 640 offences, but by 1998 that had rocketed to 47,000.
Ms Strong said the evidence suggests the net has led to an increase in crime, particularly fraud. Career criminals have also moved their existing operations online, taking advantage of the ease with which money can be moved around to refine their laundering activities.
The NCIS also recorded a huge rise in complaints of child porn, from 215 in 1997 to 1,128 in 1999 - a five-fold increase.
But detective chief inspector Alex Wood, who helped smash the Wonderland Club, insists paedophiles will find no hiding place on the net. "The Wonderland operation destroys the myth that you can be anonymous on the internet."
The European commission, meanwhile, produced a draft convention on cyber crime last year which stressed the need to balance investigative work against privacy and human rights considerations.
Police have powers to monitor emails and other forms of communications through the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. They can also demand the keys to encrypted data. This has led to concerns about civil liberties and the threat to whistleblowers.
The director of Liberty, John Wadham, said: "People are concerned about security on the internet but they are also concerned about access to their personal information by police. There has to be a balance."
But the new head of the NHTCU, detective chief superintendent Len Hynds, said police do not intend to intercept random emails and lack the capability or legal power to do so. Rather, investigations are more likely to be hampered by privacy restrictions.
"The big issue for police is how long ISPs keep evidence. There is a conflict between what law enforcement wants and what the law says," DCS Akerman said. "The European directive says ISPs will only keep records for billing purposes and must delete data which identifies individuals as soon as practicable."
Internet companies have shown they are keen to help and ISPs have joined the internet crime forum to discuss problems with the Home Office and police.
The new national hi-tech crime unit also aims to work closely with computer professionals and police around the world to pool intelligence and learn from their techniques. Police forces across Britain are also training their own officers to investigate online crime, thanks to the government's £25m funding boost.
But the law is still lagging behind police efforts to pin down internet criminals and officers are pushing for changes. They hope online deception will be made illegal, to help stop paedophiles posing as youngsters to entice children from chatrooms.
Factfile:
There is a whole range of crimes committed on the net, as these recent cases show.
Hacking : A disgruntled BT contractor in Bournemouth used his maintenance password to break into the company's computer centre at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire. He effectively pulled the plug on links between BT's data system and computers, putting the billing system out of action for 12 hours. He was sentenced to 160 hours community service, but the damage cost BT over £10m.
Money laundering : The Italian police believe the Sicilian Mafia is laundering vast sums of money in cyberspace by its use of online trading and banking. Police in Palermo have discovered a £330m fraud involving recycling tainted profits into legitimate assets such as shares, via a global network of companies and banks from Israel to New Zealand.
Fraud : An email scam offered wealthy investors a quick profit if they helped a company move money out of Nigeria to avoid financial penalties. It was so convincing several UK investors fell for the con and passed on their bank account details. One UK victim lost £2m and the national criminal intelligence service say other victims have been driven to suicide. The NCIS receives 150 emails a day relating to this and similar scams.
Incitement to racial hatred : The Simon Wiesenthal Centre report an increase of hate sites, which promote hatred primarily on racial grounds, from 50 in 1995 to 1,426 in 1999.
Terrorism : An extreme nationalist group, the Scottish National Liberation Army, has disrupted police and government networks by bombarding them with thousands of emails in denial of service attacks. Welsh nationalists and the Real IRA have also attempted this type of attack.
